Pacific salmon play an important economic, ecological, and cultural role throughout their range. However, declining salmon populations have diminished this role in many regions. The factors responsible for declines are poorly understood but are of great interest, particularly for First Nations, who have a large role in salmon management.

In British Columbia, highly saline waste water produced as a by-product of oil and gas operations are injected into deep geological formations via injection wells. The purpose of this research project is to investigate whether or not these injected fluids remain at depth as intended or rather, can return to the surface and contaminate water resources. In particular this project aims to evaluate the role that surrounding active and abandoned wellbores play in acting as vertical conduits for subsurface fluids to leak to the surface.

Grizzly bears represent a valuable economic, ecological, cultural and symbolic resource for British Columbia. In order to preserve this resource the current population of brown bears needs to be monitored to ensure the health of the population. One marker of health is the genetic health of the population. Genetic monitoring can also tell us important information about how related different bear populations are and how well these populations are adapted to their ecosystem.

Atlantic Gold is preparing to start construction for an open pit mine near the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia. However, significant wetlands will have to be altered to complete this construction. The current policies regarding wetland alteration and compensation in Nova Scotia focus on area. For example, if 25 hectares of wetland are to be altered, it is required that Atlantic Gold will have to create 50 hectares of new wetland to compensate.

Rivers in much of eastern Canada flow through regions comprised of cohesive glacial sediments, including glaciomarine clays and glacial tills. Given the glacial history of Canada, many if not most of its rivers can be characterized as semi-alluvial.
Management of these rivers in terms of sediment load is a difficult challenge, because relatively little is known about their stable channel geometry.

Predicting the quantity of mineral (gold, coper, etc) or hydrocarbon (oil, gas) extracted from a given deposit is difficult. One concern is the uncertainty in the resources underground. A few initial wells or drill holes give us access to an estimate of the quantity of resource, but there is great uncertainty because sampling can be hundreds of meters or kilometers apart.

Sedimentary rock formations are currently under consideration for the placement and long-term storage of used nuclear fuel originating from nuclear power generation. A thorough understanding of the long-term geochemical stability in these rock formations is important to prove that future interactions of the waste material with aquifers as well as flora and fauna at the land surface can be ruled out for time periods exceeding 10,000 years.

Recirculating aquaculture systems are indoor, tank-based systems which allow aquaculturalists to raise fish in controlled environmental conditions through the use of several water treatment processes. Research related to the aquaculture industry is important, as it is currently one of the fastest growing food industries. This research aims to improve the operation of these systems by reducing the amount of organic waste in the recirculated water through the use of ozone.

Water use, land use and climate change can alter hydrology and effect the downstream availably of water and timing of flows. The Athabasca River is vital for supply of oil sands energy development and in-stream aquatic habitats. Much of the water for the river originates in the Mountain and Foothills Regions, in the Upper Athabasca. The Foothills Region is busy landscape with, forestry, natural forest disturbance, and upstream oil and gas developments. WaterSMART is developing a multi-stakeholder project in hopes to inform decision making.

The objective of this research will be to evaluate the ability of a rebar coating strategy to resist chloride induced corrosion and to test its efficacy in mitigating concrete corrosion in potash mill environments. This research project involves a collaboration between academics and the potash industry under the guidance of the International Mineral Innovation Institute (IMII). The academic research team will be able to supply the partner organizations with highly trained HQP with expertise in corrosion and materials science.